Babel
by Postcards321
Summary: Red, white and blue; cracked, broken. The shield, Steve's shield, the blood dark and streaked across the metal. She turns to look at him. "There will be a man to save them all, if he only lets himself."


Hello! This is my first fanfic, please be kind! Enjoy!(hopefully)

P.S. whoever can guess this song off the top of their head wins a prize!

Disclaimer: Not mine!

* * *

_He could hear singing._

"Dark to light and light to dark—"

_The air was so thick he could barely breathe, full of smoke and fire, debris littering the ground. The sky was red; a sinister shade that reminded him of caves—_

Dissonant voices he could barely make our over the water in his shock of the battery touching the water, his nerves on fire. A sharp fear, cutting into his mind, that next time the water would take him.

'_ohgodohgodohgodIdon'twanttodie—'_

That the next time the kind Doctor with the wise eyes wouldn't be able to put him back together again.

_But what was there to save? _Just thousands of pieces, jagged edges sharp enough to draw blood—

_Yinsen._

"What brings us together is what pulls us apart—"

_The voice, a haunted voice that reached inside, twisted and pulled and_ took. Pepper's face, eyes shining with unshed tears, voice wavering.

"Tony, I'm sorry I can't-I just, I can't—"

Her voice cracking, but he'd understood,

_'I can't watch you die.'_

His father's gruff voice, his impassive eyes racking over him, _a cold_ _chill creeping_ _up his spine_. Him clutching his first robot, his first computer, his first gun, and always left wanting.

_'Why aren't you good enough?'_

Steve, blue eyes blazing, face set in grim lines, _disappointed_.

His father's greatest accomplishment. Captain America.

_"Big man in a suit of armor, take that away and what are you?" _

_The song, strangely at home in the crumbling buildings, notes curling around shattered glass, flitting across shadows and carrying on the wind. A girl, swaying from side to side, surrounded by a patchwork of rubble, glass and fire. Anything left standing covered in soot._

_She stood in what was once a building, roof blown off and only two walls left standing. She was barefoot, legs covered in dirt and her once white dress ripped and stained in dirt and blood._

"_What happened?"_

_His voice was a whisper, an overwhelming feeling of horror building in his gut._

_They had failed._

_She didn't turn around, didn't acknowledge his existence at all. He could see something metallic peeking out from behind a pile of rubble by her foot, and it held his attention, a gleaming red shining in the flames. He moved to speak again but the girl stepped forward, humming now, and trailed one hand across the streaks marring the walls broken surface. The gesture soft, and rubbed her thumb over it affectionately._

_Confusion shrouded his thoughts before he realized, and why hadn't he realized sooner?_

_They were shaped like people. _

_People, now burnt in shadows, faded outlines, black blurs._

Gone.

_"What happened?"_

_She stopped, the silence sudden and heavy, a physical feeling that prickled along his skin._

_"He died." She said, her answer a ragged whisper._

_She turned towards him, large brown eyes in a sweet face. _So young_. _

_"What?" he said, mind still reeling from the carnage, from her words,_' who had died?' _Her eyes tuned tired, old. She sighed._

_"You don't understand."_

_She turned back, and rested her hand on the broken structure._

_"The greatest warrior is the one who stands to fight because of a cause, a belief."_

_She paused, nimble fingers tracing the outline of the smallest shadow, and he swallowed past the lump in his throat and shoved aside the fact that it was most likely a child._

_"Whether its loyalty or love, revenge or ideals, pure or dark in nature; the fact remains, the greatest always fight for something."_

_She stopped, breathing harsh and overwhelming in the quiet, her hands hanging limply by her side. She straightened her back and brought her hands forward again—_

_"The heart, however, is what keeps them together. Anyone can fight alone, but the hardest thing any one man can do is place his life in another's hands, and hold theirs in turn."_

_She bent down, picked up the gleaming metal he'd seen before, and the air reverberated with the sound of rocks striking its tarnished surface._

No.

_Red, white and blue; cracked, broken—_impossible_— the shield, Steve's shield, blood dark and streaked across the metal. She turned to look at him._

_"There will be a man to save them all, if he only lets himself."_

_Her eyes were wide, beseeching, voice urgent. _

_"The heart is the key, and __**he**__ knows it."_

The silence is broken by the howling wind, clouds surging dark and foreboding across the red sky. Tony looks back to her; she stares at the ominous clouds and hefts Steve's shield closer to herself. Her dark eyes shining. Braced for battle, she does not look at him.

There is one last note, the song falling from her lips like a prayer.

"_Gone our brother, gone our heart."_

* * *

He wakes up gasping, disoriented, before he realizes he's in the workshop. Ironman schematics hover above Tony's head, and his pad rests beside his arm. He looks around wildly for a moment before he pushes his dream-_fire in the sky, a girls wide dark eyes, and the shield a dirtied broken thing, covered in blood, 'the heart is the key'_- to the back of his mind and clears his throat.

"JARVIS, get the coffee ready."

"_Already done sir, I took the liberty of starting the machine when you're readings began to fluctuate."_

Which, all things considered, was JARVIS' way of asking if he was alright without actually stating the dreaded 'are you OK?'. He paused only for a moment,

"I'm fine Jay, just a nightmare, nothing to be worried about."

JARVIS's voice sounds relived when speaks again,

"_If you're quite certain sir."_

Tony shoots a brittle smile at no one in particular, picks up his pad, and makes his way to the door.

"Now that we have that out of the way, let's see what the kids are up too."

"_Sir, I must warn you that Mr. Odinson has found the pop tarts, and seems to be attemting to negotiate terms of release with the toaster."_

Tony actually cracked a smile.

"Has the toaster surrendered yet?"

"_No sir, but Mr. Odinson has challenged it to combat."_

A pause

"_We may need to refurbish the kitchen again."_

"Damn."


End file.
